Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 11

I was interested in the uniqueness of his methods.

"Would you purpose to powder the s.h.i.+llings or use them whole--I would have thought an alligator's or shark's tooth would scarcely require that quant.i.ty of material?"

Mr Messre stared at me in a dazed manner.

"I wouldn't touch the tooth under that," he continued.

"Is there another tooth under it? then extract this one and give the other a fair chance."

"It would be a lot of trouble," he kept on, without specially replying to my remark.

"Perhaps so; when one comes to think of it, teeth, I suppose, are not filled without some exercise on the part of the dentist."

"I wouldn't think of touching that tooth for less than a guinea; why it would take at least an hour to do it."

"This is the first intimation I've had that dentists calculated to mend teeth without spending any time on them," I said.

Mr Messre didn't seem to grasp the drift of my remarks, and as I felt unequal to maintaining the conversation for a more extended period, I announced my intention of thinking about what he had said. He said it would be as well, and I emerged to find Ernest had so far progressed as to be seated in the sulky holding my parasol over Dawn.

Youth and beauty is privileged to command an athlete to hold its sunshade, while old age has difficulty in finding so much as a small boy to carry its basket across the street. Mayhap this is why it is largely the elderly and frequently the unattractive people who fight for honest rights for their cla.s.s and s.e.x, while it is from pretty young women's lips issues most of the silly rubbish anent it being entirely women's fault that men will not conform to their "influence"

in all matters. Only a very small percentage can regard conditions from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own shoe-pinch.

"I happened to see Miss Dawn here and waited to ask you how you are,"

said Ernest.

"Just what you should have done," I replied; "and now if you can wait till I investigate another dentist I want your opinion on a purchase I am making."

"Oh, certainly," he hastened to reply; "I'm doing a loaf this afternoon. I thought I heard my oar crack this morning, so came for some leather to tack round it."

This in elaborate explanation of his presence there.

The second dentist proved the ant.i.thesis of his contemporary, being short, pleasant, and bright.

"I'll tell you what," he said, laughing engagingly, "the best thing to be done with that tooth is to dress it with carbolic acid. Now this is a secret."

"One of those that only a few don't know, I suppose."

"Perhaps so," he said, laughing still more pleasantly.

"You can do this tooth just as well as I can. Get three penno'worth of acid and put some in once or twice a-day and the nerve will be dead in two or three days, and I'll do the rest."

As he proved such an amiable individual, though probably an exceedingly suburban dentist, I got rid of half an hour in desultory chat, as I could see from the window that the knight and the lady, if not progressing like a house on fire, were at least enjoying themselves in a casual way.

"Did you have only one tooth to be attended to?" inquired Dawn when I appeared.

"Yes; and I fear that it will be one too many for Noonoon dentists," I replied. I could think of nothing upon which to ask Ernest's advice, so I feigned that I was not feeling well enough for any further worry that afternoon, but would command his services at a future date.

I now held the pony while Dawn disappeared into a shop and reappeared with an acquaintance who invited us to attend a political meeting that night. The electors, alarmed at the prodigal propensities of the sitting government, were forming an Opposition League to remedy matters, and the first step was to choose one of the two candidates offering themselves as representatives of this party for Noonoon. The first one was to speak that night in the Citizens' Hall, and by paying a s.h.i.+lling one could become a member of the League, and vote for this candidate or the other.

"Oh, if I only had a vote!" regretfully exclaimed Dawn.

"He's a young chap named Walker, from Sydney,--very rich, I believe.

Do you know him?" Mrs Pollaticks inquired of me.

"I've heard of him," I said, exchanging glances with Ernest, "and should like to hear him, if convenient."

"I'll drive you in," volunteered Dawn.

"If you're around you might act as groom," I suggested to Ernest, and he gladly responding, it was agreed that we should begin electioneering that night.

"I knew Ernest would be delighted to be with us, he takes great pleasure in my company," I remarked with a.s.sumed complacence as we drove home; and I watched Dawn smile at my conceit in imagining any one took pleasure in my company while she was present, and that any normal male under ninety should do so would have been so phenomenal that she had reason for that derisive little smile.

"You said he was hopelessly red-headed," she remarked; "why, I think he has a handsome kind of red hair. I never thought red hair could be nice, but Mr Ernest's is different."

I smiled to myself.

"I never thought much of men, but this one is different," has been said by more than one bride; and, "I never could suffer infants, but this kid is different to all I've seen," is an expression often heard from proud young fathers.

"His young lady thinks so at all events," I innocently remarked, and we fell into silence complete.

ELEVEN.

ANDREW DISGRACES HIS "RARIN'."

The silence that fell upon Dawn and myself was unbroken when we went to tea and seemed to have affected the whole company, or else it was the conversational powers of Andrew, who was absent, which were wanting to enliven us.

"He ought to be home," said grandma. "He's got no business away, and the place can't be kep' in a uproar for him when the girls want to go out."

The old lady had determined to take a vigorous interest in politics, and spoke of going to hear the meetings later on herself.

It presently transpired that Andrew had not been looking to his grandma for all that went into his "stummick" so religiously as he should have been. Just as he was under discussion he made a dramatic entry, and fell breathlessly in his grandma's arm-chair near the fireplace. The usual occupant glared at him in astonishment and demanded "a explanation," which came immediately, but not from Andrew.

Instead there was a loud and imperative knocking at a side door, and when Carry, after cursing the white ants which had made the door hard to open by throwing it out of plumb with their ravages, at last got it open, there appeared an irate old man carrying a stout stick. It was plain that he too had been running,--in short, was in pursuit of Andrew, who had quite collapsed in the chair.

"I've come, missus, to warn you to keep your boy out of my orange orchard," he gulped. "Six or seven times I've nearly caught him an'

young Bray in it, but to-night I run 'em down, an' only they escaped me I'd have give 'em the father of a skelpin'. If I ketch them there again I'll bring 'em before the court an' give 'em three months; but you being a neebur, I'd like to give you a show of keepin' him out first."

The old dame, _a la_ herself, had been in the act of pouring milk and sprinkling sugar on some boiled rice which frequently appeared on the menu during Carry's week in the kitchen, previous to handing it to Miss Flipp, but she waved her hand, thereby indicating that in so dire an extremity we were to be trusted with the sugar-basin ourselves,--in fact, that any laxity in this item would have to be let slide for once.

After the manner of finely-strung temperaments with the steel in them, which wear so well, and to the last remain as sensitive as a youth or maiden, Mrs Martha Clay then rose from her seat, visibly trembling, but with a flas.h.i.+ng battle-light in her eyes.

"What have you got to say to this?" she demanded, turning on her grandson.

"I never touched none of his bloomin' old oranges. It was Jack Bray, it wasn't me."